31 Days of Star Wars – Day 11

Welcome to 31 Days of Star Wars! As this is a new blog I thought this would be the perfect way for you to get to know me a bit by answering a different question about my Star Wars preferences each day in March. Today’s subject is…

Favourite Ground Battle

So for this section I have looked at any battles that focus on ground forces – whether focusing on troops (such as on the moon of Endor) or focusing on vehicular combat (like on Crait). There are some fantastic ground battles in The Clone Wars like Umbara and the 2nd Battle of Geonosis, but I have decided to try to stick to the films for this. I was so tempted to pick the Battle of Hoth and I think until a few years ago this would have been my pick, however Rogue One’s Battle of Scarif gets my vote here.

Rogue one was on the whole a grittier War film than anything we have seen previously. Ewoks beating Stormtroopers was questionable and though he Empire showed their might on Hoth there was very little death outside of vehicles exploding. Rogue One was brilliant in the way that it showed troopers on both sides getting killed and felt much more realistic as a result.

“For Jedha!”

It was also not as one-dimensional as many of the battles in the saga – often one side has the other in retreat almost immediately – but instead the momentum repeatedly changed hands as new forces were added: The Rebels’ initial ambush put the Empire on the back foot, but the Rebels were forced to retreat when the AT-ACTs were introduced, only for the Rebels to get the advantage as General Merrick and his fellow Blue Squadron Pilots arrived to provide air support and reinforcements, until the Imperial air support evened things out and the Death Troopers were introduced to turn the battle definitively in the Empire’s favour.

This also had the extra emotional aspect of being the only battle to kill off main characters, as Bodhi, Baze and Chirrut all meet their end during the fighting. If you were watching all the films for the first time in chronological order and didn’t know what came next, I think you could genuinely worry if the Rogue One crew were going to complete their mission!

Which is your favourite ground battle? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading and May the Force be with you…